Hi,
Your participation in the Fusion 360 electronic forum is appreciated. Our developers and XD team continue working hard to release another great release.
Inferencing for Electronics
We have been working hard to integrate more and more of the Fusion 360 Design sketch capabilities into the Electronics workspace. These small productivity boosters contribute towards a frictionless design workflow for you. Before today in Fusion 360 Electronics, it could be cumbersome and time-consuming to understand precisely where your sketched lines are connected. In this release, we introduce Inferencing, A.K.A. ‘object snapping.’ As you draw, it’s now possible to automatically snap to endpoints or midpoints, draw tangent lines, and so much more. Inferencing makes drawing components, footprints, and complex board outlines easier and faster. Go to your electronic preferences to enable it.
Layers dialog is now a dockable panel
You will be saving time and mouse clicks with this enhanced feature. Circuit boards have multiple layers such as silkscreen, copper, component origin, and many more. With this new dockable panel, you can minimize or dock the layers view, providing you with more canvas space to accomplish your design. Remember that with the Display Panel, you can define layer sets, so switching between a top, bottom, or silkscreen view of the PCB can be done with even fewer clicks.
New Pattern/Arrange Command
Ever spent too much time manually arranging many LEDs in a particular way on your Schematic or PCB? The Pattern and Arrange commands accomplish just this instantly. The recently enhanced Pattern command enables you to generate duplicates of objects in a customizable rectangular or circular pattern. In contrast, the new Arrange command translates existing objects into a customizable arrangement. These productivity boosters help your Schematic keep organized, and your PCB be designed quicker. These commands aren't limited to components either; they can also be used for text or silkscreen objects.
Flat Caps for Route
Many of you will remember that in the last update, we introduced the option of flat caps - the ability to change the trace geometry on your PCB. When two traces of different widths overlap in a 'T connection', unwanted trace artifacts may appear, negatively affecting PCB performance at high frequencies.
Now, by including the Flat Cap option in the Route Manual dialog box, you can switch trace types on the fly without leaving the active command, quickly preserving your PCB's performance.
New "Insert Electronics Design" Command
We’re sure you have used the phrase more than once “No need to reinvent the wheel.” Well, that is the case with this new update. Why not reuse proven technology for your future designs? Save design time by using the new Insert Electronic Design command. Re-purpose existing Schematic and PCBs. You no longer have to re-layout that amplifier or Wi-Fi module configuration you have used in many of your products. After inserting the schematic, the associated PCB will appear in the PCB workspace, ready to be placed.
Library Editor Pad Array
Creating components is always challenging, and tools that make it easier to build them are always welcome. A unified platform needs to keep a unified user design experience, and with Fusion 360, we continue to make this a reality. The Fusion 360 library editor includes a host of tools that simplify footprint creation, one of them called SMD/PAD array. After entering the mechanical details of your component, you will have the component done in moments. The Pad Array dialog box has been updated to match the rest of Fusion 360 UI and provide a consistent work experience.
Make Via Command Interactive (preview during placement & add obstacle-awareness)
Vias are common design tools for 'stitching' and 'shielding' PCBs. Via stitching on the PCB is where many vias connect copper areas on different layers together. Via shielding is where one or two rows of vias connect copper pour together at the perimeter of some tracks or the copper pour areas.
You will no longer have to spend time manually making space when placing vias. Before today, when transitioning between layers, the selected Via would comply with the ‘Push & Shove‘ or Walk Around violator modes while routing. For this update, placing individual vias will now respond to the corresponding violate mode, so traces or adjacent vias will attempt to make space with the ‘Push & Shove’ active.
Notable improvement: show device name in Design Manager and Inspector
We continue expanding the capabilities of the panels, this time by providing you with more information on your design without having the search for it. Traditionally, getting the device name of a component on your schematic or board requires navigating to the component properties; this translates to too many clicks. Having the device name appear on the Inspector, and Device manager will let you know if the device you intend to use is the correct one at a glance.
Performance and Stability
Fix issues with MOVE performance
Our team of developers keeps working on addressing all performance issues in Fusion 360. In this update, you will experience instantaneous response while dragging component attributes and vias.
Stability Improvements to Synchronizer
Fusion 360 electronics feature real-time annotation between board and schematic. Adding components or connections to the schematic will instantly update the PCB, and some action of the PCB will update the schematic. It is paramount that this annotation persists during your design time. There are rare occasions when PCB and Schematic synchronization is lost. If this happens, Fusion 360 insight will provide you access to fix annotation using the synchronizer. We received reports of users experiencing issues when using the synchronizer. This update took care of the following:
- Crashes while selecting a different dialog box with the synchronizer open and:
- Errors that appeared when attempting to undo the synchronizer actions.
- Error message appeared if no signal was assigned for the Default Classes.
- Error undo.pp line 918 would pop up when using the synchronizer on designs with variant enabled.
Fix stability issues with polygons
We received reports from our community that the polygon's behavior was inconsistent when switching from poured to outline. This update has addressed it; consistent results will remain for polygons in outline or poured view.
Edwin Robledo
Tech Marketing Manager
